Garbage disposals have been prevalent in home kitchens for many years and provide the capability of rendering waste food materials into acceptable liquefied condition to permit disposal into a standard sewer or septic system. Prior to the availability of such devices, consumers necessarily removed and scraped all solid waste food materials from dining plates and utensils in order to prevent clogging of the plumbing line through accumulation of such undesirable items. As such, food disposal units have proven to be one of the more common appliances found in homes throughout the United States.
Older homes (i.e., pre-1970 or so) were not built with such devices, and thus may have been or may be subject to upgrading through installation of such garbage disposals today. As well, there are instances where older units may require removal for repair or outright replacement if the unit fails. In any of those scenarios, the homeowner is forced to install such a device, either through the retention of a plumbing professional or undertaking such a task on his own. Likewise, during the actual construction of a new home, homebuilders do not typically purchase entire sink/disposal combinations, but must first install the sink and then ultimately install the garbage disposal unit separately. In any event, installation of food/garbage disposal units to already-present sinks is a common event for which there is a lack of tools provided within the pertinent industry to aid in such an endeavor. As a result, disposal unit installation may benefit from the employment of at least two persons to lift, center, and attach such a bulky, cumbersome device to a sink drain; single-person installation is difficult and cumbersome since the ability to hold a disposal unit in place and simultaneously attach the same to a drain opening requires strength and persistence by the installer to perform all such installation tasks (including lifting, centering, and leveling) prior to drain attachment. The weight of certain disposal units (such as those that are rather large, run quieter, and provide stronger grinding capability) can exceed 18 pounds. As such, these heavier disposal units generally require an installer to raise the unit from underneath a subject sink while lying on his back inside the vanity that supports the sink or, alternatively, squatting outside the subject vanity that supports the sink. Consequently, such an installation procedure permits the installer a view of only one or two of the connection points (three such points are typical) that must be engaged to secure the disposal unit hanging while centered and leveled from the sink connection points to create the necessary watertight seal to prevent leakage during use. As well, the longer a single installer works on making a good connection, the greater his chances for injury as muscles tend to tire over time when lifting and temporarily supporting such heavy and cumbersome loads. The connection between sink and disposal unit must be flush and centered in order to provide reliable flow-through into the disposal unit during utilization as well; any misalignment could prove problematic and could lead to undesirable leaks, if not total failure, of the entire sink/disposal system, as alluded to above. Thus, the only current manner of reliable installation either requires a single person of such abilities, or a team of installers working in concert to such an end. A tool that provides a single installer potential without requiring difficult placement estimates and/or uncommon strength (not to mention the possible utilization of unreliable supports, such as a jack, blocks, bricks, books, buckets, and the like, under the disposal unit during installation), is highly desirable within this specific industry.
To date, there has been only one installation tool of any significance that has provided a modicum of convenience to aid within the food/garbage disposal unit installation area. U.S. Pat. No. 6,557,229, to Ricci, discloses a tool that includes a threaded rod with a conical bottom portion and two plates with round cut-outs sized appropriately for introduction of the threaded rod; the lower of the two plates rests on the conical bottom portion which allows the plate to tilt on demand and return in place thereafter. The lower plate is thus introduced through a sink drain and then into the opening of the subject food/garbage disposal unit and the upper plate rests on the external top perimeter of the sink drain. Apparently, the user then operates the threaded rod through rotational movement to basically engage the plates in a screw-type manner in order to use the top plate as a weight to balance the weight of the disposal that is lifted through the bottom plate upward movement until the unit and the sink drain are aligned for attachment. Such a device suffers from a number of drawbacks, in particular the utilization of metal plates that could mar both the external sink drain as well as the internal cavity of the disposal unit. As well, such a device is not easily adjustable if the user misaligns the disposal unit with the drain opening since the weight of the entire disposal is dependent on the top plate's position on the external sink area. Additionally, the user must introduce an entire plate through two openings that are smaller in diameter than the length of the bottom plate diameter itself. The ability to tilt the plate in relation to the conical base may allow for such movement; however, the plate's size itself militates against manual maneuvering through even one opening, let alone two in succession. As such, this previously patented tool does not provide an effective manner of meeting the necessities of a reliable single user installation procedure. The actual workability of the overall device is questionable since the diameter of the circular lower plate would not appear to allow passage thereof through a narrower drain, regardless of any tilt of the plate during installation. It would seem, conversely, that any circular plate that could properly pass through a subject drain through a simple tilt procedure would not appropriately engage the rims of a subject disposal unit roof to accord the necessary reliable lift means for disposal unit installation to occur.
Thus, to date, there still exists a need to provide an effective tool for food/garbage disposal installation, particularly for a single person installation. The inventive tool described and disclosed herein overcomes these prior deficiencies.